The CEO of fitness tech company Polar says the majority of people do not trust the stats and guidance offered by their wearables, in an interview with Wareable.

Polar CEO Sander Werring says only 42% of people trust their fitness tracker’s data, and suggests this is too low a score.

“For us, the opportunity lies in the fact that research shows that only 42% of wearable users trust the data they receive and the guidance they receive… I think it’s too low. You can’t afford anymore to have a 42% level of trust in the accuracy of what you do.”

Polar is one of the lead manufacturers of dedicated heart rate readers and, based on my experience of using the Polar Grit X over the last week, its wearables’ stat accuracy is on-par with that of Garmin’s higher-end watches.

Polar also says it currently has no plans to start putting ECG hardware in its watches, but may consider partnerships with other companies to get up to speed with this tech.

Arch-rival Garmin recently announced ECG support for Venu 2 Plus owners in the US. The watch already had the necessary hardware, but it was sitting silent until Garmin added the ECG app in late January 2023.

Polar’s most recent news is a partnership going the other way. It announced the Casio G-Squad GBD-H2000 on February 28, a watch that uses Polar’s software to turn a chunky G-Shock watch into a fitness tracker.

This goes beyond just step counting, into sleep, wellness, performance, recovery and training.

The plan is the Casio G-Squad GBD-H2000 will be the first of a family of “Powered by Polar” watches, effectively diversifying the ways Polar can generate revenue.

Current Polar watch series include the Vantage V2, Pacer Pro and Ignite 3.